These six years drove you to crave for Christ in a church that seemed to burn with fire for God and the things of God. Mama Meka, your university friend, who was now a neighbour that stayed two flats away with a husband and four children, introduced you to the church. You had cried to her, telling her how God had been so unfair to you. But you did not tell her all the things on your mind. You did not remind her how she had been a runs girl in school, how she had slept with different guys for a living before she met her husband. You did not tell her how you kept your virginity while she wasted hers. You did not tell her that while your husband met you a virgin, you had plotted with her to use the blood of a chicken to prove to her husband that she was a virgin. No, you did not bother to tell her all that, even though you felt telling her would have really showed how God was very unfair to you.
“Chinwe, tell me what I have done to God?” You simply asked her. She tried to comfort you, and suggested a place she knew that she could take you to, and you would find a supernatural solution to your problem. You were interested since it was not a shrine, but a church. You were afraid of requesting anything from the devil because you believed that the curse of God is better than the blessing of the devil.
“I have heard testimonies of women as old as Sarah, and even older giving birth to not just one child but to twins and sometimes triplets.” As Mama Meka told you these words, you produced a television in your mind and watched a movie in it, in which you were the lead actress. You watched yourself not as old as Sarah, but with twins and a face soaked with tears of joy, testifying to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
She invited you to experience just one service; a single service that she believed would cause you to experience divine miracles. “Come and see the Holy Ghost as he bombs away every problem in your life with the kind of bomb Boko Haram has never seen. The Consuming Fire kind of Bomb that can burn an ocean dry.” She almost started to speak in tongues as she spoke to you that day in her flat. You were sitting on a brown-coloured settee with her, opposite a LG plasma screen TV that stared blankly with a wide black eye at both of you. You tried to look beyond the maze of tears in your eyes into her eyes, and tap the optimism of faith in them. “There is nothing too hard for God to do. Follow me to my church, and you will testify, my dear.” The way she said my dear sounded like an older woman talking to a younger woman, even though you were thirty-two, and she was two years younger. The fact that she had given birth to children seemed to have given her enough years to be older than you were.
Anyway, you accepted her invitation to the church, and followed her for the Women’s Prayer meeting that holds every Monday morning from 9am until the Holy Ghost wants the meeting to end. The church was three streets away, and with one hundred naira, you could get an okada (motorcycle) to take you there. However, you did not take okada, you took your silver-coloured Camry with Mama Meka sitting in the front with you. She complained about how the car AC was too cold, but you could not feel the cold; instead you only felt like toast bread in an oven. But you still turned it low for her.
The first thing you noticed as you got to the front of the church was a white signboard in the shape of a cross; on it was scribbled in black paint: The Burning Bush Ministry. Below the name was the address of the church: 1, Fire Street, Onike, Lagos.
You walked with the pace of anticipation into the church of a large rectangular building painted in white with blue aluminium roof. You walked into a group of women praying in the spirit of Pentecost, feeding the air-conditioned air with diverse tongues. The Pastor’s wife, known simply as Mummy, was leading a prayer meeting for women with problems like yours, and other women-related problems, according to Mama Meka. You observed the way the women were praying, and tried to emulate their prayer tactics and tone. And when Mummy said “Pray out loud that brimstone should rain on every power and person that want to put you to shame…” in Yoruba, which a woman beside her quickly interpreted in English, you prayed louder than anyone else with your hands swinging and head shaking, a kind of spiritual violence possessed you.
The kingdom of God suffereth violence, and the violent taketh it by force.
You were willing to take back your fruitfulness by violence anywhere it had been hiding. That day, you prayed like you had never done in your life; you prayed like a person labouring to build a tower to heaven so that he/she can access God easily.
After the prayer meeting, a prayer pamphlet of fourteen prayer points was distributed to everyone, and you were all asked to pray the prayers between 12am and 2am. Mama Meka then introduced you to Mummy and a few other women, who welcomed you with a smiling face unlike the tough face they prayed with to accentuate the seriousness of their prayers. You tried to imagine the kinds of problem that had brought the women here, the problems they were masking with a smiling face. Barrenness? Like you? Marital abuse? Marital unhappiness? Poverty? Sick husband or child?
“Welcome to the church that burns without getting burnt.” Mummy’s words reminded you of catalyst, a word you heard for the first time in SSS1 from your Chemistry teacher, who defined it as a substance that initiates or accelerates a chemical reaction without itself being affected. The church was a catalyst that burns without being burnt. You then imagined a tongue of fire licking away barrenness from your life.
After welcoming you, they asked about your husband, you said he was fine; they asked about your children; you said nothing but swallowed saliva, and they understood why you were there.
“Oh, don’t worry, woman, the good Lord that we pray to here shall answer your prayer and grant you your heart’s desire in Jesus’ name.” Mummy said, and a chorus of amen filled the air into your ears and heart, and you believed her words. Mummy then went to the altar that had a glassy podium, and she brought a plastic bottle of olive oil for you.
“Anoint yourself morning and night, and drink from it too, but don’t allow it to finish. Always ensure you refill it before it finishes. May the good Lord be with you.”
You collected the bottle, and thanked her. Soon you and Mama Meka stepped out, waving goodbye to others still in the church. You stepped into the car, quite hopeful that everything would be fine. As you zoomed off, you did not feel as hot as you had felt when you were coming.
Around 12am, while your husband snored into the night air, you picked the prayer pamphlet and prayed fire into the air. You cast out demons. You resisted the devil. You commanded witches and wizards to die. You broke every evil agenda against your life. You destroyed the wicked. You fought prayerfully that night like Jacob struggling with the angel of God, saying, “I shall not let you go until you bless me”.
Although you prayed fervently, you were careful enough not to wake your husband who must have been very tired to snore that deep.
Afterwards, you did not attend only the women’s prayer meeting. You left St. Peter’s Cathedral, where you and your husband usually attended, and began to attend the glorious service of The Burning Bush Ministry. All you told your husband was that God appeared to you in your dream, and asked you to leave St. Peter’s Cathedral. Aside Sunday service, you began to attend the bible study on Tuesday and a deliverance prayer meeting on Wednesday. Then on Thursday, you chose to go there for a personal prayer meeting: strictly you and God lost in the wilderness prayers. Every Friday, you attended vigil, leaving your husband all alone to occupy the large space of the bed until you return in the morning. You joined the ushering team, and usually went to church on Saturday to clean it and arranged the chairs for Sunday. Your life moved in a churchy circle.
Your husband was silent for one month, and had to lie to Father Benson that you went to your mother’s place for a while to spend some time with her, that’s why you had not been around. But that lie didn’t last for long.
“Brother Biodun, I heard your wife now attends one of those noise-making churches around? Is that true?” Father Benson asked your husband after Mass one Sunday.
“Em sir… em, well, if you want me to be honest… the answer to your question is yes, Father…”
“Holy Mary, Mother of God!” He made the sign of the cross of Christ by moving his right hand, holding a rosary, from the forehead to the chest, then right to left of the shoulders.
“But I will ensure that she returns as soon as possible, Father.”
“Please do, Brother Biodun. Don’t allow her to fall into the hands of false prophets.”
That Sunday, your husband pleaded with you on his knees when it was bedtime. The first time your husband knelt for you was on the day he proposed to you; it was even half-kneeling that day, because it was done on just one knee. Seeing him kneeling with his two knees now brought back the memory of him asking you to marry him. That day was a Saturday, a Valentine Saturday and your birthday too. Both of you had planned to spend that day together in his place, where he would cook for you and eat with you. You both went to Oyingbo market to buy foodstuffs for the special meal he had planned to cook for you. It was while you were haggling over a small plastic basket of onions that he went on one knee, and he proposed. Phones flashed their cameras, and market women clapped as yes slipped out of your mouth before you even understood the situation you have found yourself. Tears clouded your eyes as they do whenever one shreds onions. The engagement ring was like the onion ring, but a silver-coloured one, which made the tears to gather and fall. Your marketplace engagement proposal became top news among bloggers and on social media. You married him three months later, and that appeared to be the best thing that had ever happened to you…
“Please, return to our family church…” your husband’s voice broke into the flow of memory that you were experiencing. You looked into eyes, lifted your right palm to his cheek, and told him that you can never return, that you had found God like never before elsewhere, then you kissed his forehead and slept, turning your back on him. That day, your husband started slipping off your fingers. He was really disappointed as he slept beside you, wondering what had come over the woman he had loved and married. The woman he had been faithful to despite the strong temptation he faced in the hands of his very sexy secretary, who never stopped to showcase her sexiness with thick lipsticked lips, an always open cleavage and forever short skirts. He would have sacked her a long time ago if they had not been friends in secondary school; and not just any ordinary friend, but his girlfriend, his first love, but they could not continue their relationship because they got admission into different distant universities.
Your husband slipped faster from your fingers when you began to stop him from touching you the way he used to. Usually, he had sex with you every Friday night, and sometimes any day of the week he did not feel too tired on his return home from work. But vigil replaced night of sexual consummation. You would leave him alone on the bed, and go to church to pray for a child or more. And on Saturday night, you wanted to be pure enough to pray to God on Sunday so you also refused him to touch you too. Sometime he wondered if you were expecting the Holy Spirit to impregnate you like the Virgin Mary since you hardly allowed him to touch you anymore.
Just as you spent your Friday night in church, your husband began to spend his in his office. But not alone. He missed touching you after a year, and soon began to crave for his secretary, who was willing to satisfy his sexual craving. Their affair started one Friday afternoon with your husband looking worried about not having the opportunity to make love to his wife for over a year; the secretary noticed the worry on your husband’s face.
“Any problem, Biodun?” She asked him with those wild, sexy-looking eyes of hers.
“Not really, Becca. Just stressed.”
“Oh, do you care for a quick massage then?” She knew your husband would always say no, and was shocked when he told her yes. She quickly moved to the back of his chair, and massaged his shoulders. Your husband closed his eyes, feeling relaxed under feminine fingers. His eyes were still closed as the secretary moved her hands across his chest to his crotch. He struggled not to open his eyes as she felt his hardness. She would have given him a fellatio if not for a knock on the door. She quickly stood erect and alert, while he opened his eyes, groaning for a pleasure interrupted.
Later that day, your husband dropped a note on her desk, asking her to see him after the office had closed for the day. And she gladly did. As soon as she stepped into his office, he grabbed her face and kissed her, thirsting for a pleasure long denied. A brief, violent romance of books and documents being scattered from the office desk led to sex. Your husband freed the erotic emotions caged up in him into her. And they began to have sex almost every day. They often did it on his desk in the night, and in his office toilet some afternoons.
Three months after the first time they had sex, the secretary informed your husband that she was pregnant for him. He wanted her to abort the baby, but she refused, saying she was willing to marry him, to bring back the affection they shared in secondary school.
“Biodun, why should you throw away the child that God has blessed you with? Divorce that barren land you call wife, and marry me. We will live happily ever after with our child, and even have more children. Or don’t you want to have a child or more of your own? Someone to call you papa?” She had said with a smile to your husband, who still loved you, and did not want to let you go. He still insisted that she abort the baby. He was willing to pay anything for her to abort the child in her womb.
The day you found out about the pregnancy, you were conducting a prayer at home, binding every demon in your environment. It was on a Thursday. A knock on the door made you to pause your prayer. You found a beautiful stranger at the door, who claimed she was a friend of your husband and had a message for you. You welcomed her, and invited her to sit on the settee, but she declined saying she was not staying for long.
“So what message do you have for me, my beautiful sister?” You asked her with the gentle smile of a born-again Christian.
She smiled, and said, touching her stomach, “I’m pregnant for Biodun, your husband.”
“What?!” The word dropped in question and exclamatory form out of your mouth.
“I said I’m pregnant for your husband! Although he wants me to abort the child, I won’t! And be prepared to leave this house, because I’m going to ensure that the father of my child marries me!” She placed her hand on her stomach again as she said the father of my child. You were quite shocked. You walked back to where your bible was, wanting to fling it at the face of the strange woman who claimed to be pregnant for your husband, but you did not want your anger to hinder God from answering your prayers. Maybe God was testing your faith and patience. You wondered, and continued to bind demons in your environment. You did not hear her call you a mad, barren woman as she laughed out of the sitting room. You were still casting out every demon in your environment that did not want you to have a child of your own. And while you had been praying for an unseen child, you forgot to pray for your husband.
By Samuel Oluwatobi Olatunji
Credits: Elisian
Credits: Elisian
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